Oh Darling
by she.a.punk
Summary: "I want to spend the rest of my life with you Jules. But, um, there's something I've got to tell you first. And I hope..." he sighed, but bravely kept his eyes locked on hers. "I just hope you can forgive me." - Shules with some Gus thrown in because life isn't complete without him.
1. If You Ask Me For My Heart

**A/N:** how I love Shules. And as far as I know, Juliet is still in the dark about Shawn's big secret. So, I thought to myself, when would be the moment, the make or break moment, when Shawn _has_ to tell her. Because, we all know, he _has_ to tell her _sometime_...

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Psych or Plug In Stereo. I also don't really remember what Juliet's apartment looks like.

_You seem quite nice for a girl with good looks,  
__And I'm the kind of fella that'll make you feel better when your life gets shook so,  
__Give it a chance,  
__According to your plan,  
__I bet I'm not number one on your list to kiss but,  
__Please understand_

-Oh Darling (feat. Cady Groves) by Plug in Stereo

When Juliet walked into her apartment that night, she gasped. The lights were out and the place was filled, wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling with dozens, hundreds of candles.

"Shawn," she breathed, her eyes trying to take in everything at once. "How..."

Shawn smiled a small, strangely serene smile. He stood in the middle of the room, hands stuffed in the pockets of his jeans and it was strange to see him so still.

"There was a huge going out of business sale at World 'O Candles." He joked half-heartedly.

It wasn't really funny but Juliet laughed all the same. He had that effect on her.

"Shawn, c'mon. What is all this?" She asked, walking up to him.

Shawn sighed, giving her that deeply affectionate look he only showed when he knew no one else was looking. The one that made butterflies flutter in her stomach and said 'I told you so' to all the mean girls she knew in high school.

"Jules," was all he said, pulling her close and tucking errant blonde hairs behind one ear.

"Yeah?" she asked back, just as quietly.

He seemed to struggle a moment for words and she watched the war raging behind his eyes, wondering what it was that he was so afraid off.

"I have a question for you." He said finally.

Juliet tried not to hold her breath as he, without taking his eyes off her, reached into his pocket and pulled out a small black box.

"Shawn." She said again, covering her mouth, her eyes sparkling, ready, _so_ ready for this.

"But before I ask, before you answer," Shawn cut in, bringing her gaze up to his questioningly, "I need to tell you a story."

Juliet started to laugh. "Shawn, you cant be serious." She'd been waiting for this moment her entire life, he couldn't possibly think now was a good time for jokes.

"Please, Juliet."

It was the use of her full name, not the serious tone or unusual sincerity in his eyes, but the lack of his favored nickname that brought her up short.

She nodded, her eyes automatically dropping back to the box he'd yet to open.

"Okay. I'm listening."

Shawn sighed again and it occurred to her that she'd never seen him nervous before. Scared yes, a couple times, but never nervous. And she decided that this emotion didn't suit him any more than the other one did.

"Lets, uh, sit down," he motioned with his head toward the small cherry wood table that was set up in the limbo space between the living room and kitchen. Juliet did, watching Shawn take a seat beside her, his hands trembling as he set the small, unopened black box on the table in front of them.

"Jules," he began again, reaching out to take her hands and fold them between his. "I love you. You know that," he smirked slightly, "But I do. I love you more than I ever thought I could love anyone. And I...I want to spend the rest of my life with you Jules. But, um, there's something I've got to tell you first. And I hope..." he sighed, but bravely kept his eyes locked on hers. "I just hope you can forgive me."

Juliet started to frown, her eyebrows creasing worriedly. "Shawn what-"

"Please," he cut her off quickly, desperately, "please just let me finish."

With An uncomfortable weight settling in her stomach, Juliet nodded.

Shawn sighed, his eyes remaining unwaveringly locked on hers.

"A little over five years ago, I was between jobs, as usual. Back in Santa Barbara for a few years for the first time since graduating." he cleared his throat, and Juliet frowned slightly at the tension in his shoulders and eyes. She squeezed his hands, but found she wasn't all that comforted when he squeezed back.

"I was getting by calling in tips for the police while I looked for a new job. I would just watch the evening news, listen to the report, hazard a guess and call it in. More often than not I was right and I got paid for it."

Juliet frowned fully. Where was he going with this?

"One day Lassiter decided to bring me in and question me. He was convinced I was pulling off these elaborate inside jobs...that somehow I was part of it. Jules, I swear I wasn't and I didn't know what else to do. They were going to put me in lockup with this behemoth and a crazy looking guy with very questionable hygiene and I couldn't see a way out, I just said the first thing that came to mind." he said in a rush, suddenly desperate that she understand.

She didn't.

"Shawn, what are you trying to tell me?"

He sighed again, reaching out to take her hands in his.

"I'm telling you, Juliet, that I'm..." He paused, swallowing several times and Juliet tilted her head, urging him silently to continue.

"I'm not psychic." He said finally, staring at her wide-eyed. Waiting with his heart in his ears for her response.

Several moments of pregnant silence passed before Juliet moved.

Whens he did it was not what Shawn was expecting.

"Oh Shawn. C'mon." She said between a sudden bout of giggles, "You actually expect me to believe that?" she asked, waiting to see that trademark 'I'm smarter than you but I'm not going to say so' smirk of his.

It never came.

"Yeah Jules," he said, deathly quiet. "Every word."

Juliet stared at him a moment longer and then, seeing the truth in his eyes, she pulled her hands from his, suddenly feeling ice cold. Standing, she turned away, and didn't see Shawn fold his hands and press them to his lips, the way he always did when life had suddenly gotten too real, too heavy for him. His eyes fell closed, a look of resigned misery written on his face.

"Jules I-"

"No, Shawn…this is crazy I mean..." she shook her head and then her eyes widened, remembering. She whirled around to look at him. "That first day. At the diner, the day we met, how did you know all those things about me?"

Shawn looked pained by the question.

"I noticed some cat fur on your shoes and saw your parents picture in your bag. The rest is just good guessing." he admitted.

Jules stared at him, mouth hanging open in shock.

"Its been five years Shawn...so many cases...how?"

"My mom has a photographic memory, so do I." He explained quietly, the way one might to a frightened animal, "and all my dad ever wanted was for me to be a cop. He taught me everything he knows, whether I liked it or not. And I guess I kind of took to it, like it or not. And the cases they're like puzzles, or math problems I used to do in school. Its just a matter of connecting the dots, the pieces just come together in my head."

Juliet was still staring into space in shock. Her left hand had moved to cover her mouth and Shawn stood, reaching out to her.

She stepped out of his reach, suddenly locking her eyes to his.

"All these years Shawn. Why didn't you tell me?"

Again, Shawn looked pained.

"I couldn't Jules. At first, I couldn't because I knew you would have to say something to the chief, and I'd be out of the only job I've ever loved and every case I'd worked on would be called into question. And then we were dating and it was new and everything I'd ever wanted and I didn't want to ruin it by telling you that I was a lie." he swallowed hard," and then I realized I loved you. Truly, madly, deeply." Juliet's mouth almost quirked at that. She loved Savage Garden.

"And I realized I couldn't live another day without you, and I also couldn't live another day lying to you. I had to choose."

With another one of those small, foreign, sad smiles, Shawn turned back to the table and opened the box, looking at the sparkling diamond ring inside with hunched shoulders for a moment before placing it carefully back down on the table.

"I choose you Jules." He almost whispered, "If you'll still have me."

Shawn waited a few seconds, hoping to hear Juliet's smooth voice. Telling him she loved him. Telling him she didn't care about all that. Telling him 'yes'.

But silence was all that met him and he gave a short nod, accepting her silence for the answer it was and glanced once more at the box before showing himself to the door.

TBC


	2. And I Wanna Know Would You Treat Me Well

**A/N:** Thanks so much for all the awesome reviews! I read them all and do make an attempt to respond to them, though I think I fail miserably most of the time...

* * *

The frantic knocking at Gus' door at eleven thirty at night wasn't altogether unexpected. Still, it was nearly midnight and he'd been on his way to bed so if he was in a pair of blue pajama bottoms with floating cartoony trains on them and a white t-shirt, who was to judge him?

"Hold on a second Shawn," he shouted as he cut across the living room. The knocking ceased just as his hand fell to the doorknob and he whipped it open.

"Oh. Juliet," he said, a bit taken aback by seeing the blonde on his doorstep. He took in the tight shoulders and arms crossed over her chest, the way she was biting her lip and anger and betrayal in her eyes all in one glance.

Gus sighed, deflating a bit.

"He told you."

Juliet's mouth dropped open and she stepped inside Gus' apartment as he swung the door further open, shutting and locking it behind them.

"You knew?" She threw her hands in the air and whirled around on him. As she did so she caught sight of a framed picture on one of the couch end tables in the living room. It was of Shawn and Gus after a little league baseball game, dirty and smiling in the dugout. She sighed, losing some of her ire with the realization that she would probably never know Shawn as well as Gus did. But then, she'd always kind of known that.

"Of course you knew."

Gus didn't deny that, Juliet knew as well as anyone how close he and Shawn were. He went to one of the stools at the kitchen bar and sat down, facing her. She wasn't looking at him, merely shaking her head and staring at the floor.

"Why didn't you tell me Gus? Why didn't _he_?" She shook her head again, "all these years…he's been _lying _to me."

"He wasn't lying to you Juliet."

She lifted her head and turned, disbelief painted across her face. "Gus, he's _not _psychic. How is that not lying?"

"Ok, he's not psychic." Gus shrugged. "But he didn't exactly make up solving all those cases and all those things he knows about people just by looking at them." He shook his head, gesturing vaguely at shared memories. "So there's no spirit world involved. I don't know about you but I can't do what he does." He snorted, remembering when his uncle Burton was in town. "Believe me, I've tried."

He looked up to find Juliet looking at him, none of the humor on his face reflected on hers.

"Gus," she said quietly and his stomach seized in panic to realize there were tears in her voice, though thankfully not in her eyes, "how can I ever trust him?"

Gus thought a moment. And his eyes skipped over briefly to the Incan tribal mask on his bookcase Shawn had smuggled in to him from that summer he spent as a tour guide in mexico. The package, which he'd received from a post office box in Texas, was the first he'd heard from Shawn in over a year at the time.

And then there was the blue marbel egg sitting on the windowsill above the sink in the kitchen. Gus had called the hotel it'd been shipped from frantically when he got the box. It was the first anyone had heard from him in one a month after Shawn got on his bike and rode away from graduation, still in his cap and gown, bound for the East Coast. Shawn had won the trinkit in a poker game in Boston along with a ticket aboard a cruise that was headed for Spain.

Gus' phone call missed him by minutes before he boarded the ship.

Inwardly, Gus shuddered. He hated remembering those years in between graduating High School and the day Lassiter arrested Shawn. Days when he had no idea when or if he'd ever hear from his best friend again. The guy was a loose canon to put it mildly. As kids Gus couldn't remember how mnay scraps they'd gotten into because of some half-brained idea of Shawns.

And Gus always went along. Because most of the time Gus was the one having to grab Shawn by the shirt collar and pull him back form the edge of a proverbial cliff. Shawn was never good at judging distances, bound and determined to jump to the other side. But Gus could always tell the difference between just far enough and too far. And when Shawn had run off on his own after graduation Gus hadn't been able to go along with him.

Every day for five years he'd been petrified he'd get a phone call from some unknown town in a far away land saying he'd begin getting a box of Shawn's things and whatever was left of him.

Juliet had settled on the couch, looking shell shocked, and Gus got up to go to the kitchen and get them both a glass of water, if for no other reason than to have something to do with his hands. Anyway, he was parched all of a sudden.

As he reached for the glasses his eyes landed on the newspaper clipping on the fridge of the article written about the dinosaur he and Gus had found a few years before. And suddenly he was jolted back in time more than five years and he smiled, remembering how relieved he'd been when Shawn had leased office space for psych. Annoyed and upset because in typical Shawn fashion he hadn't asked Gus' opinion, just taken for granted the other man would be right beside him (which he was of course, but Gus still liked to be consulted every now and then) but relieved too. Because it meant Shawn was staying.

Gus took the glasses of water back to the living room. Shawn was a different man now. Stable for the first time in his life. Successful even. He was speaking to his Dad more than once a year and Gus had never seen him so happy.

Still, he'd been willing to give all that up. Everything. And for what?

The answer to that question was now drooping on his couch, staring at the contents of a small black box, looking confused and miserable.

Gus licked his lips and sat across from her on the table in front of the couch, handing her the glass of water and stared at her until she looked up.

"Are those trains?" She said, looking at his pajama bottoms.

Gus rolled his eyes but chose not to respond to that comment.

"Juliet," he paused, steeling himself for what would undoubtedly be her reaction to his next statement. "I told him not to tell you."

Juliet's eyes widened and her mouth dropped open.

"Gus…how could you?"

"Juliet, you have to understand, Psych is the best thing to ever happen to Shawn." He shook his head when she started to open her mouth and continued quickly. "Without Psych, he would be back on that bike, traveling all over the place getting into who knows what with nobody to have his back. Jules, you know how often he and I get into trouble just here in Santa Barbara, and that's with me as a voice of reason and you and Lassiter on speed dial if things get out of control. Now just imagine him out on his own doing whatever the heck he feels like, on whatever continent he feels like with no one to call when it all goes down?"

He watched as some of the color drained out of the woman's face and nodded. "Exactly. Look, I know this isn't what you want to hear but, I told him not to tell you because I didn't want him to jeopardize the life he's built here in these last few years. On our first case, Shawn told me the only way anyone can ever prove he's not psychic is for him to tell them. And now he has."

He paused again, seeing that the tears he'd heard in Jules' voice previously were now standing in her eyes. He looked over to the side and picked up the black box she'd put down on the table. He reached inside and pulled out the silver diamond ring Shawn had bought. He'd been with him when he picked out the two karat diamond (Shawn had no idea what words like clarity and cut meant and Gus considered himself something of a diamond connoisseur) and it dazzled just as much now as it had in the store.

After a moment Gus held it out until Juliet put her hand out and he dropped it into her palm .

"That's why you can trust him, Juliet. He's put everything he has on the line. For you."

**TBC**

Just some Gus introspective/ reassuring Juliet stuff. Hope you enjoyed, one more chap!


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